


Nineteen Candles

by Matrya



Series: Names of the Damned [2]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Canon Typical Daddy Issues, Gen, Police
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 06:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14785146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matrya/pseuds/Matrya
Summary: Better to bleed than to fail. // Kate tries to make her father proud, November '92.





	Nineteen Candles

**Author's Note:**

> a fifteen minute fic about the choices made for us, and our determination to make them our own.

Joanne goes to SCSU for a degree in something her parents never thought of doing. Kate helps her move into the crappy dorm room and thinks about all the things Joanne can do, one day, with a degree she dreamt about at fourteen. Joanne never had the kind of legacy that Kate married the day that her mother went into the ground.

Not to say that Kate has a problem with that legacy. Even before she reached high school, she knew what she would do; she knew what her father respected. If there was ever something else she wanted to do, it was too far in the past for her to remember as more than a dream.

So she helps Joanne move into the dorm because she has a car, but Joanne saved for college instead. Two weeks later, Kate takes the written.

Her father knew she would do this but God knows he never gave her guidance or answers. Kate has figured this out on her own and not everything...

She shakes that out of her head. What matters is where she is, not what she had to do, had to give up, to get here.

Her personality is all cop, after all. As long as the job gets done, no point in worrying about the means to those ends. She owes that to her father when she brings him bagged lunch or ordered dinner. She avoids eyes across the room.

Shooting is old hat, of course. The uniform who taught her when she was barely old enough for a training bra is the same woman who proctors her shooting exam and signs off on her marksmanship.

The psychological assessment is the hardest part, because Dr Malone has seen her around the precinct since she was trying to have Cyndi Lauper's hair and wearing scrunchies up both wrists. Malone has seen all the days that Kate did what had to be done.

Kate can handle Malone, though. She has enough experience, and she knows the cost. She knows—always her father's daughter—that the ends justify the means.

When she finally wears her first set of blues, her father notes a stray hair out of her bun and adjusts her cover and tells her, still not-quite proud, "You almost look like a real cop."

She is, though. She is a real cop and cops never cry when their daddies refuse to have pride in them. There are more legacies in the department than just her, and she might just be damned if Lockley is the name that inspires pity. The only difference with her and them is that she happens to be a woman.

Fair enough, but so many of them have already proven that they could only hope to be half the cop her father is.

She nods through the pain of their pity and his distance, though, and tells the captain that she will be a detective in five years.

The captain nods and tells her he believes her, but his voice sounds more like paperwork than faith.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, kudos, and critique are all very much appreciated. If you want to chat, hit me up at [my tumblr](http://matrya.tumblr.com)!


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